date: Wed Feb  6 15:55:25 2002
from: Mike Hulme <m.hulme@uea.ac.uk>
subject: letter for Julian Dowdeswell
to: lc301@cam.ac.uk

   Dear Professor Dowdeswell,
   It seems I have just missed you and since you are away for a while I should contact you
   this way.  You may have picked up that the Tyndall Centre, with the FCO, is convening a
   one-day symposium on 8 May addressing strategic issues concerned with climate change and
   the Arctic from a UK perspective (see spec. outline below).  This ball started with the FCO
   and via NERC ended with us.  We picked it up because of our integrating role re.
   inter-disciplinary research on climate change and we see agenda-setting one strand of our
   activity.
   We would like you to be involved in the day (Liz Morris and Steve Albon are helping us
   arrange the day) and I wonder whether you are available to accept one of two possible
   roles:
   - following an FCO minister and Bob Correll from ACIA, we would like a scene-setting
   overview on the different dimensions of why the Arctic is important re. climate change and
   re. the UK.  Our visiting research director - John Schellnhuber from PIK - cannot make the
   day, but we would ask whether you are able to make this presentation (20-30 minutes).  It
   would need to raise both science and policy elements, and both natural and social science
   elements.  If you are not able to do this, would you recommend someone else in the UK?
   - or else, if not the above, to chair an afternoon session where we have 4 short
   contributions - Cattle, Callaghan, Nuttall, Bentham - on different dimensions of the issue.
   Sorry I can't send an outline of the day but attachments are banned apparently!  I hope you
   can let me have your initial thoughts before you return.
   Thanks,
   Mike
   _______________________________________________________________
   Climate Change and the Arctic and its implications for the UK:
   Towards a New UK Research Agenda
   Wednesday 8 May 2002, Norwich
   The effects of climate change are widely anticipated to be particularly pronounced in the
   Arctic, not only on the regions environment but also on Arctic resources, human-health and
   other social issues, and on various economic activities. Furthermore, biogeochemical
   feedbacks and interactions within the climate system mean that regional impacts are likely
   to lead to wide-ranging changes that affect other regions of the world, including the UK.
   For these reasons the UK has been actively engaged in Arctic research for many years, even
   though it is not one of the eight arctic-rim nations of the Arctic Council. With the
   scientific evidence for present and future climate change, and its consequences,
   strengthened through the recent publication of the Third Assessment Report of the
   Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, there is a timely need to provide useful and
   reliable information to governments, organisations and the peoples of the Arctic region in
   order to better support policy-making processes. This has lead to a number of UK scientists
   becoming involved in the design and execution of the international collaborative Arctic
   Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) initiative.
   The objectives of this one day agenda-setting symposium are:
    to bring together key members of the UKs Arctic research and policy-making communities
   and to raise awareness of the work of the ACIA and the UKs engagement in this initiative;
    to identify important knowledge gaps and to determine the extent to which the UK can help
   to address these deficiencies through integrated trans-disciplinary research; and
    to prioritise the UKs future research effort in topics related to climate change and the
   Arctic.
   This event is being organised in association with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

   *****************************************************************************
   Dr Mike Hulme
   Executive Director
   Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
   School of Environmental Sciences
   University of East Anglia
   Norwich  NR4  7TJ
   UK
   tel:            +44 (0)1603 593162
   fax:            +44 (0)1603 593901
   mobile: 07801 842 597
   email:          m.hulme@uea.ac.uk
   web site:       [1]www.tyndall.ac.uk
   secretary:      Vanessa McGregor on tel: 593900
                   email: v.mcgregor@uea.ac.uk
   ************************************************************************************
                     The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
                   .... integrated research for sustainable responses ....
           The Tyndall Centre is a research initiative funded by three UK
     Research Councils - NERC, ESRC, EPSRC - with support from the DTI.
   ************************************************************************************

